Terminus
Posts: 41459
Joined: 4/23/2005 From: Denmark Status: offline
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This discussion makes me remember HMS Audacity. She was a very dirty conversion, without hangar facilities, but could carry about 6 Martlets. If we posit a simple hangar installation with a single elevator for the Kitty Hawk, a ship only about 100 feet longer, and needing far more powerful machinery (boilers and turbines, instead of just a single marine diesel) and more bunkerage, we might be able to justify a 12-plane air group with permanent deck park for 1/3 to 1/2 of the aircraft. Also also, I'm wondering at the feasibility of doing this in the first place. The Omaha class was not a well designed ship. As a scout, it was built for speed ONLY, which meant that corners had been cut in the design stage, including structural integrity, wetness and habitability. How about this? The Kitty Hawk and her sister are converted from the first two Omahas, once the Navy figures out that they're not worth building more of, and turns to an improved, slightly larger scout cruiser. Nothing wrong with her general hull shape (although the freeboard was too low), so the Navy designs the Huntington class, an Omaha+ with properly turreted 6in guns instead of the casemate crap and a bit more displacement to improve structure and habitability. Learn from your mistakes and whatnot.
< Message edited by Terminus -- 8/17/2015 9:44:26 AM >
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We are all dreams of the Giant Space Butterfly.
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